Tuesday, March 21, 2006

My thoughts on our role and responsibilities beyond our own teaching and institutions

5 Comments:

What is our responsibility in this violent era?Make more information accessible to students through modern channels of technology and help them become critical thinkers so that they can raise beyond media and construct their own meaning to the events in this rapidly changing era.

Our responsibility to advocate includes not only ourselves, but also those whose voices are seldom heard. This means coming to know and respect "the other"--something not always as easy as academicians and educators would like. It is sometimes hard to bridge the gap between our ideals and our ability to handle the harsh realities of mkae real and authentic connections with the people for whom we hope to advocate.

On the topic of increasing access to quality education for students worldwide, we should advocate for an interoperable system of virtual schooling in which (once low cost computers and internet are widely available) students from many cultures learn together and come to know each other. When children, well educated as a result of choices that work for them, understand their global neighbors and work in learning teams and become adults with a global perspective, it will matter little what measures individual governments do to curtail rights.

Benjamin Barber: "Public education isn't important because it serves the public, it is important because it creates the public" (italics, mine). So what kind of public is this that we're creating? One in which the children in one of our countries thinks they are pitted against the children in another? A public that believes that mechanical correctness is more important than innovation (particularly innovations that might save lives or make life livable?).

Sometimes, I wonder whether we dream enough. I wonder whether we haven't yet put a vision for children's education before the public that is so compelling outside policymakers are unable to carry the day...